Shopzilla Publisher Program Attending Affiliate Summit West 2011

Hey Publishers,

If you are planning to attend Affiliate Summit West 2011, be sure to contact us to catch up with Julia Barrett / Director, Affiliate Marketing while she wanders the Meet Market Sunday, January 9th.

The Shopzilla Publisher Team

Shopzilla Publisher will be attending Shop.org this week!

Hey Publishers,

The Shopzilla Publisher Program will be attending Shop.org in Dallas on Tuesday, September 28th and Wednesday, September 29th.

Julia Barrett, Director of Affiliate Marketing, will be manning Booth 512 along with our Shopzilla, Inc. Business Services and Bizrate Insights teams.

Please stop by to say hello if you're in the neighborhood!

Shopzilla Publisher Program Speaking at Affiliate Summit East 2010

 

Hey Publishers,

Just a reminder for those of you planning to attend Affiliate Summit East 2010, the Shopzilla Publisher Program will be hosting a roundtable discussion during the Ask the Experts networking and education session.

Can't make it to Affiliate Summit East 2010? In the New York area? Be sure to contact us to catch up with Julia Barrett / Director, Affiliate Marketing and Bryan Byrne / Senior Account Coordinator while they're in town.

Meet the Shopzilla Publisher Program at Affiliate Summit East 2010

Hey Publishers,

For those of you planning to attend Affiliate Summit East 2010, the Shopzilla Publisher Program will be hosting a roundtable discussion during the Ask the Experts networking and education session.

Ask the Expertswill be held Monday, August 16th from 5pm to 6pm. We'll be discussing topic "WordPress Plugins".  This session is open to all pass holders, so stop by with your thoughts and questions on popular APIs and available WordPress plugins.

Can't make it to Affiliate Summit East 2010? In the New York area? Be sure to contact us to catch up with Julia Barrett / Director, Affiliate Marketing and Bryan Byrne / Senior Account Coordinator while they're in town.

An Interview with Jeff Jarvis

The Shopzilla Publisher Program had the unexpected pleasure of sitting down with Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? and who blogs BuzzMachine, at the Aspen Ideas Festival to chat about a couple of timely topics related to online media and advertising.

 

We asked Mr. Jarvis to share his perspective on the affiliate sales tax issue. Mr. Jarvis sees both sides of the issue. On one hand, he appreciates that brick & mortar retailers are disadvantaged by having to collect sales tax from customers. On the other hand, he's concerned about public policies that could hamper the growth of e-commerce. Mr. Jarvis went on to reiterate the viewpoint he laid-out in his book; that manufacturers and retailers are likely to operate "showrooms" for products they sell and that those products will likely be shipped to customers, with the exception of when customers have a time-sensitive need to possess them. (I personally would've appreciated having access to a showroom where I could've previewed some furniture that I recently purchased from Pottery Barn.)

 

In Jarvis' book, he maintains that real-estate agents and car salesman don't necessarily reduce transactional friction. So, Shopzilla was also interested in whether he sees Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) and Retail Aggregators as adding value or acting as middlemen. His view was that if CSEs only extract value from the market, then they're not adding value. Certainly, CSEs add value to online retailers insofar as they qualify buyer leads (clicks) to those retailers and drive sales within their allowable ranges. Shopzilla Publisher is extremely focused on ensuring that we create merchant value by vigilantly monitoring the quality of traffic that originates from our network of affiliates. That leaves us with the question of whether we add value for consumers. Some might maintain that the transparency CSEs create around product prices creates value for consumers. Though, this feature is one that is quickly becoming commoditized by the large number of comparison shopping sites that exist today. It made this writer stop and think about what more CSEs need to do to create consumer value beyond price comparison.

 

Jarvis attended the AIF session at which Eric Schmidt spoke. In his post about the session, Mr. Jarvis noted that someone asked Schmidt about Froogle, to which Schmidt apparently responded:

"Why did you remind me". Why didn’t it work? "It didin’t work because it just didn’t work. We celebrate our failure in the company because we want people to take risks."

If it's not working, then why is Google featuring product search results so prominently in its general results? Mr. Jarvis believes it makes Google's results more valuable and relevant; and given that Schmidt acknowledged that 97% of Google's revenue come from advertising, Jarvis believes Google might try to better monetize the product search listings on Google. Shopzilla will certainly be paying close attention.

 

We also discussed a recent post by Jon Fine about Barry Diller's perspective on paid web content. Diller was quoted as saying:

 "People will pay for content. I absolutely believe the internet is passin from its free phase into a paid system."

While Mr. Jarvis is not opposed to publishers charging for content, he believes that a predominantly paid model simply won't work. We believe he shares the Shopzilla Publisher Program's view that "the data yearns to be free". Walling the content takes it out of the conversation, which is where news and journalism is happening today. His belief is that consumers will continue to pay for access to content in cases where an advantage can be had from timely access to that information. For example, Bloomberg can command hefty premiums for its content because the consumers of that content can take advantage of market opportunities from its timely access (even if that window is only 6/10s of a second).

 

We closed our conversation by noting that BuzzMachine has all of two advertisements on its site: 1 AdSense placement and 1 BlogAd placement. So, of course, we wanted to know whether BuzzMachine wants to run Shopzilla Publisher Program ads. Jarvis' answer: Sure. There's nothing wrong with that answer!

 

Shopzilla Publisher will be attending ad:Space this week!

Hey Publishers! 

The Shopzilla Publisher Team will be attending the ad:Space / ad:Tech Conference in San Francisco Tuesday, April 21st - Wednesday, April 22nd.

We will be manning a pod throughout the course of the ad:Space conference, and a table during the ad:Space Lunch Reception Wednesday, April 22nd 12:30pm - 2:30pm. 

Please stop by to say hello if you're in the neighborhood!
Shopzilla Publisher Team

Publisher Team is attending the eComXpo today and tomorrow!

Shopzilla Publisher team members Chris Calvi, Talia Drake and Bryan Byrne will be attending online eCommerce convention eComXpo Wednesday, January 28th and Thursday, January 29th.

To sign-up for free, please go to ecomxpo.com.

We hope to see you there!

Shopzilla Publisher Program at Affiliate Summit 2009

The Shopzilla Publisher team made the short plane trip out to Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit West 2009 January 11th - 13th. The event was an excellent opportunity for us to meet some of our current publishers as well as giving many potential publishers information about our program. Over the two days, the Shopzilla Publisher booth had a steady flow of people inquiring about the program, and we would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to those who dropped by! 

 

Pictured below are Shopzilla's Christopher Calvi and David Weinrot with affiliate world rockstar Shawn Collins of Affiliate Tip & Affiliate Summit fame! 

For more pictures of the Shopzilla Publisher team at Affiliate Summit check out our Facebook  page. Become a fan of our group!

Shopzilla Publisher will be at Affiliate Summit West 2009!

   

Hey Publishers! 

The Shopzilla Publisher Team will be attending Affiliate Summit West 2009  in Las Vegas Sunday, January 11th - Tuesday, January 13th!

We will be manning Booth 523 along with David Weinrot / Senior Vice President, Operations & Business Development and Juan Paul Ramirez / Senior Director, Engineering.

We look forward to meeting you!
Shopzilla Publisher Team

Shopzilla Publisher will be at BlogWorld!

Hey Bloggers! 

The Shopzilla Publisher team will be attending Blog World in Las Vegas Friday, September 19th - Sunday, September 21st!

Julia & Talia will be manning Booth 213 along with David Weinrot / SVP of Content Marketing, Juan Paul Ramirez / Engineering Architect & the legendary Tim Flight of gpsreview.net fame.

We look forward to seeing you!
Shopzilla Publisher Team

Find Us at Affiliate Summit - Las Vegas

We're exhibiting at Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas! The conference begins Sunday, February 24th and ends Tuesday, February 26th. Write this down: "BOOTH #423". That's we're you'll find your friendly Shopzilla Publisher Program Crew (see map to the right for exact location of or killer booth). Stop by and say hi to Chris, David, Julia, Rex, and Talia. We'd love to meet as many of our publishers in person as possible!

If you haven't signed up for Affiliate Summit yet, what are you waiting for? The buzz is getting pretty huge for this event. There are going to be tons of amazing people to network with (attendees from over a thousand different companies) and things to learn. Plus a keynote from Jason Calacanis, founder of Mahalo.com. We're pretty sure you'll come out of this thing with more money earning ideas than you know what to do with. Exhibit Hall passes are only $199 right now. Not bad considering the bajillions of dollars you'll likely make with the knowledge you'll gain.

Once you get your registration set up, let us know so we can make sure we don't miss you at the conference.  We'll be sure to show you a good time in Vegas. See you there!

Shopzilla Publisher Program - at PubCon in Vegas!

The Shopzilla Publisher Program will be at PubCon in Las Vegas, December 4th - December 6th. Be on the lookout. Talia, Chris, and Rex are ready to take on any questions you might have about the program and are excited to get to meet as many Shopzilla Publishers as possible.

The Shopzilla Publisher Program won't have a booth at the event, so look for us in the crowd. We promise to make it worth your while if you find us.

If you know you're going to be at PubCon, give us a shout out so we can coordinate a meeting at the event. It's always great to get one-on-one time with our Publishers.

Shopzilla Publisher Program will be at eComXpo

 

The Shopzilla Publisher Program will be exhibiting at eComXpo, the online virtual trade show for eCommerce Marketers, October 9-11, 2007. The event is 100% online, virtual and free at www.ecomxpo.com. eComXpo features all the benefits of a top traditional tradeshow without the cost, travel or hassle associated with traditional events. Attendees and exhibitors will be able to interact with over 8,000 people via chat or email, attend educational presentations by top industry experts, visit over 400 booths in the exhibit hall and enter to win fantastic prizes. The best part is that it can be done without leaving the comfort of your own home or office. Click here to learn more  about eComXpo or register for free.

If you're in the neighborhood, stop by and chat with Rex and Talia. They'll be running the booth and would love to hear from you.